Who Are Your Favorites For Relegation From and Promotion To EPL?

Not that most of us need many reasons to keep watching for the remainder of this season, but the closing of this season gives us quite a few to keep our DVRs busy. We have, obviously, the race for the title starting to get really interesting with Manchester United, Chelsea, and Arsenal all warranting reasons to be at the top by the season’s end. Also, the fourth Champion’s League place is incredibly exciting with Tottenham, Manchester City, Liverpool, Aston Villa, and even Everton making a charge. It’s still too early on for anything to be definitive but we’re starting to see the true contenders emerge. Related, this season could be historic in that I believe it could very well be the start of the decline of the big four.

However, there is another race that I would argue is much more important to the majority of English teams than who wins the title or who qualifies for the Champion’s League. Staying in the top-flight or being promoted to the top-flight is the central goal for many clubs in English football. With some clubs the goal of “staying up” could be considered near vital. Most of us here will agree that this system of promotion and relegation is great for many reasons. The fight in the Championship for this promotion into the Premier League is like nothing else and getting new clubs into the league keep it relatively fresh each season. I’m a huge fan of the idea and will often use it to pique interest in my non-football-watching Americans. It seems to be an aspect of English football that Americans find really interesting.

There are a few points of contention, however. To begin, the play-off system doesn’t seem fair to some supporters. It’s possible that a team that ended the season in sixth place would be promoted to the top-flight, while third through fifth spot are left behind wondering how this could happen. It’s certainly exciting but has to be frustrating when your team could have more points than the team able to reap the benefits of the Premiership. Wouldn’t just promoting the top three teams make it much fairer?

Also, there is the whole problem of competiveness. The argument is that certain teams have no realistic chance that they will be able to complete on the same level as a Chelsea or Manchester City and will not spend big or at all for fear of taking that debt into relegation. These teams are happy to just make 17th and, therefore, ensure the status-quo is kept. Why not just always have 20 teams that can build over the years without fear of relegation – thus making the Premiership more competitive over time?

As far as the current relegation battle is concerned, we’re definitely seeing it start to get more and more of a concern for clubs. Portsmouth look like they’ve secured last place but Hull City, Burnley, West Ham, Wigan Athletic, Wolves, or Bolton could find their club in the Championship next year.

Newcastle and West Bromwich have all but secured a spot in the Premier League with Nottingham Forest, Leicester City, Swansea City, Cardiff City looking to be the teams that will be entered into the playoff system. Blackpool, Sheffield United, and Middlesbrough may have an outside chance of making it into those playoff spots too.

As for my thoughts, I love the idea of promotion and relegation and feel that a play-off to determine that last Premiership team provides a great end to the season. Also, even newly promoted teams are getting more and more competitive with the so-called top clubs.

As for my picks, I’m going with Newcastle, West Bromwich, and Cardiff City to come up with Portsmouth, Burnley, and West Ham going down.

Who do you think will be promoted and relegated this season? Also, what are your thoughts on the current promotion and relegation system and do you think the play-off system is fair?

You’re right – another line in the “for” relegation / promotion column. Sometimes clubs may find that a season in the Championship allows them to get a fresh start. It’s can be a good chance to get rid of some players and get some momentum built up (not that I’m saying it’s easy in such a tough league).

While I don’t support Newcastle, I’ve always had a soft soft for them with family living in the area. People may not believe me but I always thought they would come right back up and be stronger for it. While not quite secured yet, I’m hoping for it too.

Newcastle, Westbrom, and Notts Forest up. Portsmouth, Westham, and sadly Burnley down. Burnley was hot at the beginning of the season when they were beating the teams like ManU and Everton, but they couldn’t keep it up like Hull City last year.

It will be good to see New Castle back inthe premier league next year, when the Geordies arent in the league it just feels weird like something is missing.

I agree with your list aside from West Ham, it looks like they are dropping down but they are that team I just don’t wanna see fall for some reason. I would rather see Hull drop than West Ham.

Another potentially exciting development is Leeds could possibly be moving up to the Championship next year and could be back in the premiership within the next couple of years.

As a big fan of all sports, the EPL holds a special place because of the Relegation/promotion. It forces teams to compete, and unlike american teams who do badly; They are not rewarded with a top draft pick with promise of an upcomming young star. Yes the big 4 have mostly dominated the premiership since inception. However, teams like Leeds and New Castle have showed that no one is safe from relegation regardless of your history and accomplishments.

Relegation will do us some good, but ultimately we’ll probably end up in League One in the 2011-12 season. We will have to sell pretty much every player we own just to lower the wage bill to match the revenue in the Championship. Once we’ve done that, and our parachute payment is already spoken for, we won’t have much money left to bring in any quality. The club has already announced that it is looking for loans and free transfers for next season. We’re not going to get much quality with those restrictions. A season or two in League One will do us a lot of good. Get rid of the debt, invest in the infrastructure of the club, and take the time to rebuild it correctly. I’m afraid we won’t see Pompey in the top flight for many years.

i don’t know anything about the premier league and am hoping someone might be able to point me in the right direction or just answer a few questions i have: 1) before each game, do you sing a national anthem like we do in the USA before each American football game? 2) in American football, we often consider the quarterback the leader of a team, who would that be on your side of the pond, the goalie? 3) do you have a ‘most valuable player’ selected after each game? thx!

1) To the best of my knowledge, the songs that are sung before matches are generally club songs or cheers. Famous songs include The White Pele (Wayne Rooney), Celery (Chelsea), When The Reds Go Marching In (Liverpool), We All Follow the Arsenal (Arsenal, duh), et cetera. I believe it is a pretty American thing to know the words verbatim to the national anthem, for I have friends abroad in Europe and Asia who sortakinda know their country’s national anthem jingle but haven’t a clue what the lyrics are.

2) The leader of the team can really be a variety of different people on the team, not necessarily the goalkeeper. Generally, the leader of the team is the captain of the team, such as Francesc Fàbregas of Arsenal or Steven Gerrard of Liverpool. But the “leader” of the team doesn’t necessarily have to be the captain, case in point, Wayne Rooney. Rooney isn’t the captain of United but he’s undoubtedly the talismanic leader of United this season.

3) There’s a man of the match award after each game, but the real “MVP” comes up in the Barclays Premier League Player of the Month, a monthly award which is awarded to an exceptional performer in each month.

I want to see WHU go down but I had been picking Hull to drop though, but to my delight WHU have been stinking up the joint and my dream to see them be relegated may yet be realized!

I always pay more attention to the relegation battle than the championship battle. I think WHU getting relegated will make up for the displeasure to see Newcastle United return. Maybe Newcastle will drop in their first year after promotion though,

I’m hoping for Nottingham Forest to get promoted but after the playoff disaster against Yeovil a couple of years ago, it wouldn’t surprise me for them to screw up a playoff and maybe get promoted next season. Hoping for the best but expecting the worst, I will say that the two legged playoff against Yeovil was the most exciting soccer I have ever witnessed and that was just a playoff to get to the Championship! I wish America would adopt promotion/relegation but can’t see it happening for a variety of reasons, the biggest being that America ignores minor leagues in general. For instance, Nottingham Forest still averaged over 20,000 fans and closer to 30k during their last few years in the lower tiers, no way will a minor league club ever average that here in the States.

I like promotion/relegation, and quite frankly wish that Baseball and Basketball adopted the same systems. 90% of the games those teams play are meaningless in the present system, and yet none of the crappy teams have a shot at becoming much better in a sustained way.

For me I would like to see those 3 teams go down: West Ham United, Portsmouth, and Bolton (with Mr. “Less Loyal than a College Coach” Cole). Oh how sweet it would be to see them go down and Burnley stay up.

Teams to come up: Newcastle, Notingham Forest (disregarding the fact that WBA are all but promoted) and Cardiff City.

Pompey, Burnley will go down for sure. But my dark horse is Manc U to be relegated in 2011, once the glorious Red Knights convince ticketholders to boycott all the games. Good time are approaching for the non top 4.

I believe that the third team to be promoted will be Nottingham Forest while the two teams to be relegated together with Portsmouth will be Burnley and West Ham. The current relegation system is fair. From the opening match, the team must treat it like the final one and not wait for the closing season to try to avoid relegation. As for the promotion system, I believe it should be the top 3. The play-off is just another way to create revenue for the clubs. Of course the players will have extra motivation to play their hearts out for that lucrative EPL. It is so unfair for the club in 3rd place especially their players. But at least we football fans benefit from the play-offs as it means more suspense and drama and more football to watch.

I am a Spurs fan and I am so happy they are able to beat Chelsea & Arsenal. Hopefully they can beat Man U and cement their 4th place. But I hope one day the 4th place will subject to a play-off between the teams on 4th to 7th to give more clubs like Aston Villa, Everton and my beloved Spurs a chance to vie for the last Champions League spot so as to give the EPL a more exciting finale. This will benefit those clubs that will never be able to break into the big 4 and a chance to taste Champions League for the first time. This will in turn enable some of the English players like Jermaine Defoe or even Ashley Young a chance to play against the best like Kaka or Lionel Messi. I know this is only a dream just like my beloved England team winning the World Cup in South Africa. But then if Susan Boyle can fulfill her dream, I can continue to live my dream.